"I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft... As for me, give me a fixed gear!" --Henri Desgrange, 1902. Of course Desgrange was insane, but we pretend to ignore that part.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

A while ago I picked up a Soma Smoothie ES that had been put
together with drop bars and Ultegra components. The recipient decided they weren’t going to
be riding the bike and gave the bike back. My wife had the opportunity to
ride the bike and liked it but she did not like the drop bars. So this gave me
the opportunity to do a flat bar conversion; this is basically a replacement
conversion. To do a flat bar conversion you are basically turning your road
bike into a mountain bike. The shifters are mountain bike shifters with a different model number. Like a mountain bike, the rear shifting is the same so
you can use your old road derailleur, but the front shifting is different and
even if you were to use a mountain bike front derailleur, the arc of the cage
would comprise the shifting. So it’s
off to buy some bike parts. Below you see the following*.

* be advised that like everything else Shimano, there are different levels. These are the "4" or Tiagra level components; there is also the "5" or 105 level which seems to exist only for brake levers, the "6" or SLX (9 speed) level and the "7" or 10 speed Ultegra level. This web site spells out the Shimano flat bar components .

Now it's time to take the old stuff off. Below are the drop bars (with a Shimano Flight Deck), Ultegra Brake/Shifter, and front Ultegra triple derailleur. The amount of cable pulled and needed for Shimano road front shifter and derailleur, needed for indexing, differs from mountain bike front shifters and derailleurs. Further mountain bike front derailleurs have an arc to the cage for shifting from/to a 44-48T chainring, which would comprise the shifting from/to a 50-53T chainring. The Shimano FD R443 is a cross between mountain mike cable pull with a wider cage arc for larger road chainrings.

First I installed the bar, brake and shifters. As I said before the shifters are mountain bike shifters, so if you have some lying around, you won't need to buy any for a conversion. These flat bar brakes are simply cantilever brake levers, which work very well with side pull calipers, but will not work with V-brakes.

Next I installed the front derailleur and connected the derailleurs and brakes with housings and cables.
.